Inspection of youth offending services in Tower Hamlets - To understand the findings from the inspection report and review the plans for improvement.

Mr James Thomas, Corporate Director for Children and Culture introduced this presentation stating the outcome of the inspection published in July 2022 was disappointing. He said it reflected services were not good enough at the point of inspection. Mr Thomas said a new leadership team had taken over with himself leading the Justice Service Management Board and new appointments of Ms Beasley-Murray as the Director of Supporting Families and Ms Kelly Duggan as Head of the Youth Justice Service.

Mr Thomas handed over to Ms Beasley-Murray who talked about the changes made in consideration of the seven recommendations made by the Inspectorate. She said the membership of the Board had been reviewed with an executive and operational board in place. She said this would help to ensure the actions on the improvement plan could being pushed forward and managers at the right level of seniority were actively seeking better outcomes for YJS children.

Ms Beasley-Murray continued stated they had made changes to policy and procedures to ensure all data and management information was accurate and reliable, which helped with informed decision-making. She said they had reviewed the out-of-court provision and had improved the quality of assessment of at-risk children.

Ms Kelly Duggan stated the statutory one-year Youth Justice Plan had been devised and submitted to the Youth Justice Board along with the comprehensive improvement plan outlining how the service was intending to improve its activity over the next two years. She said a YJS disproportionality action plan had also been included as part of the improvement plan.

Ms Duggan stated there were six priority areas for focus and they were working with staff, partners and YJS children to improve governance and leadership. Mr Luke Norbury showed how the service would track its delivery of the improvement plan and how they were learning from best practice, with better trained staff.

In response to comments and questions from members the following was noted:

• Referring to the out-of-court provision, Dr Rice asked what exactly was going on. Ms Duggan responded stating that there were many small things that led to the bigger issue; from the lack of focus and trust within the service to staff relying on Youth Condition Cautions – (the more stringent recourse than triage and Youth cautions – which are voluntary) for decision making.  She said they had re-trained staff and had built their confidence so that better decisions and outcomes can be achieved for children. She said they were changing the method of assessment.
• In respect to how the actions from the improvement plan had been communicated to staff, Mr Luke Norbury stated that they had involved staff from the onset to help devise, engage and own the improvement plan. He said the governance structure had been improved, with visibility of senior managers and daily communication within teams, plus dissemination of information through newsletters and emails. Ms Beasley-Murray added that there was an expectation for improvement, and this was also communicated and discussed through staff appraisals.
• Ms Duggan confirmed the external assessors would be assisting the areas where the service has scored lowest. She said there were numerous areas that required improvement.
• Mr Thomas said one way to strengthen the governance arrangements was to have representation of young people on the Youth Justice Executive Board. He said it was important to hear the voices of young people be that from them attending meetings or providing a video recording. He said young people found video interviews to be less daunting than attending in person. He said it was vital the ‘voice of the child’ was captured more systematically in everything they did. Ms Beasley-Murray added they were looking to set up a Youth Justice Council like the Young Mayor’s youth council, to engage regular voices representing young people.
• Ms Duggan stated she did have adequate resources to deliver the improvement plan and said significant work had been done to improve staff morale. She said the service was on a journey of improvement and clear leadership and staff involvement was key to this. She said staff had been involved from the onset and team building through a team away-day, regular supervision and appraisal all helped to improve morale.

The Chair thanked Mr James Thomas and the Youth Justice Service for their presentation.